Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Negotiations on the development of deep-lying gas at giant Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of fields in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea are planned to be completed in 2014.

BP's Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Gordon Birrell told journalists on January 29 that currently negotiations on this issue are underway with Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR.

"We hope that the negotiations will be completed by late 2014," Birrell said.

The ACG block of fields has been producing oil since 1997. Production started from the Chirag part of the field and continues successfully to this day. This was followed by the Azeri Project; Central Azeri production started in February 2005, West Azeri began production in December 2005, and East Azeri came on stream in October 2006. The Deepwater Gunashli section launched production in April 2008.

It is necessary to sign a new contract for the development of the ACG block of fields. The deep-lying gas reserves in ACG are estimated at 300 billion cubic meters. To date the ACG field has produced over 2.3 billion barrels of oil.

Earlier SOCAR head Rovnag Abdullayev said the agreement for deep-lying gas development in the ACG fields will be concluded on the basis of a new risk service agreement.

The first ACG contract was a production sharing agreement (PSA). A new type of contract will allow an increase in the volume of SOCAR's of energy resources.